J-law’s nude pics hacker is caged for 8 months
A MAN who hacked into Jennifer Lawrence’s private icloud and leaked nude pictures of her was jailed yesterday.
George Garofano invaded 240 people’s Apple accounts, including other stars such as Kate Upton, Amber Heard, Gabrielle Union and Kirsten Dunst.
The 26-year-old, who was a college student at the time, pleaded guilty in April to hacking into the accounts by sending phishing emails while posing as an Apple security expert.
When the unsuspecting victims handed over their usernames and passwords, Garofano took what he wanted.
Thousands of naked images and sex tapes flooded the internet after the widescale hacking and many were circulated on social media and sites like 4Chan in what was dubbed ‘The Fappening’ – a misogynistic term referencing the nudity aspect of the pictures. The court heard how Garafano had stolen intimate images to trade with other hackers and may have sold some to supplement his income.
He was handed an eight-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release.
His legal team argued he had “cleaned up his act” in the four years since and asked for a more lenient prison sentence of just five months, claiming he had “already suffered” serious consequences of his actions.
But prosecutors told the court: “Mr Garofano’s offence was a serious one. He illegally hacked into
EX-BOYFRIEND his victims’ online accounts, invaded their privacy and stole their personal information, including private and intimate photos.
“He did not engage in this conduct on just one occasion. He engaged in this conduct 240 times over the course of 18 months.
INCOME
“Not only did Mr Garofano keep for himself the photographs he stole, he disseminated them to other individuals.
“He may have also sold them to others to earn extra income.
“In committing this offence, Mr Garofano acted in complete and utter disregard for the impact on his victims’ lives.”
Three other hackers – Emilio Herrera, Ryan Collins and Edward Majerczyk – have also been jailed for their part in the icloud scandal with prison terms ranging between nine and 18 months. In the wake of the leak, Lawrence revealed she felt like she’d been “gang-banged”.
She told Hollywood Reporter: “When the hacking thing happened, it was so unbelievably violating that you can’t even put it into words.
“I feel like I got gang-banged by the f ***** g planet, like, there’s not one person in the world that is not capable of seeing these intimate photos of me.
“You can just be at a barbecue and somebody can just pull them up on their phone.
“It’s so many different things to process when you’ve been violated like that.”
Her nude pictures had been shared with then-boyfriend actor Nicolas Hoult before they were stolen from her icloud.